Awarded the Prix de la Fondation pour Genève in recognition of a lifetime dedicated to the city, Ivan Pictet embodies Geneva's civic spirit. Banker, philanthropist, and longtime champion of International Geneva, his remarkable journey has been shaped by curiosity, humility, and a commitment to bringing people together.

The office is not what you expect. Tucked in the attic of an old building in Eaux-Vives, it is a little haven of plants, natural light, and rustic beams. This is where Lara Mai Vo Van, her co-founder Pascale Clemann, and their small team spend most of the year building the Geneva Street Food Festival, which for eleven days each summer takes over the Plaine de Plainpalais and draws over a hundred thousand people together over food.

If you’ve walked along the boulevard des Philosophes recently, you may have paused in front of number 20, wondering about the banner stretched across the facade: "Equality is built. Together. La Collective will open its doors in 2027— a space bringing together seven women's associations, a café, a library, housing, childcare, and cultural life under one roof. One of the women behind it, Laurence Levrat-Pictet, has spent a lifetime making things like this happen. I went to find out how.

Writer, interviewer, collector of conversations. Alain Elkann has sat across from presidents, cardinals, artists, and Nobel Prize winners — thousands of conversations spanning decades — and never once posed a question he wasn't willing to abandon. I met him at his home in Geneva to talk a bit about everything: the craft of the interview, the future of books, why common sense might be the most underrated virtue of our time, and the advice that has stayed with him since childhood.